It's hard not to feel ambivalent regarding Principal Richards' departure. Finding educator leaders who will bring integrity, value, a game plan, and change isn't so easy, and it's understandable that he would be attracted back to where he had great success.

All we can do is wish him well and encourage the search committee to find someone with a longer-term commitment to Melrose. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to find a talented, enthusiastic, qualified local candidate, although maybe that's not the fashion these days.

Thanks Ron. Your comment made me think of a question to throw out there, for sake of discussion: Should Melrose High School focus on finding an internal candidate for principal, who might be more likely to commit to the school for the long haul? Or do the challenges the high school has faced over the past couple of years mean that Melrose High School needs an outside change agent?

I don't mean to suggest that the Principal was either a 'resume'-builder' or a 'carpetbagger', just that a consistent direction with stable leadership is generally a cornerstone of great organizations. Companies with revolving door management, shifting product lines, and problem financing seldom outperform.

My inclination at this point would be to try to find a qualified internal candidate, who may be more inclined to commit long-term. Ron is right - this revolving door we've seen is not conducive to improvement. That being said, I wonder if there is one? If there were, wouldn't we have seen him/her last year?

There is no one currently within the Melrose School system who is qualified to take on the challenges Melrose High School faces. The reality is that the school is populated by many underperforming teachers who are not held accountable. My experience with Richards has been that he was dismissive of legitimate parental concerns, that he was not involved with students in any positive way, that he was terrible for teacher and staff morale, and that he was more interested in improving the school's image (and his own) than in solving the very serious problems inside the high school. I believe that his departure after only one year exposes that he only used this job as a resume booster and that he never had a serious commitment to the students of Melrose. The challenge of filling the position (not so much replacing Richards, because I believe he was incompetent and easily replaced) with the right person will be daunting. However, we must seize this challenge as an opportunity, as I honestly believe Richards' departure is a big plus. But we must find the right person this time. It needs to be someone who will be committed to the district for a long period of time, who will not be afraid of upsetting the entrenched, and who wil bring integrity and enthusiasm to the job. Richards lacked each of these qualifications.

Any thoughts on why Mr. Richards is leaving for Belmont? Is he being paid that much more and/or what are the driving factors? I think that we really need to know the truth on this to better select a candidate next time. What a disappointment!

Dan, you might be correct in your last comment. If you are correct, that statement underscores what a terrible choice Mr. Richards was for the Melrose schools. He never should have taken the job if his heart was not in it, if his true loyalty was to the Belmont schools. It was always evident in my dealings with Mr. Richards that he felt that Melrose was beneath him; that he was superior to the people of Melrose in every way. As a taxpayer and as a parent of MHS students, I feel abused by this unprofessional "educator". I cannot express how happy I am that he is leaving, and I know that many teachers and students feel the same way.

I just noticed something very troubling in the article above. New Supt. Taymore says that she has met Mr. Richards "at least twice"? He was on the search committee that hired her, and he has been principal of the high school in the district where she was named superintendent about a month ago, and they have only met "at least twice"? That looks very bad for both of them.

Actually, Ms. Taymore was named superintendent at the end of March - so she has had ample time to get to know the principal of the only high school in a school district where she has been named superintendent. It has been 2 1/2 months. Prior to being named as superintendent, she should have/would have met with Richards "at least twice" - he was then principal of the district's high school and a member of the search committee that hired her. I'm sorry, but it sounds to me like she has not been "coming up to speed on her new job," and I find that troubling. I also question why she sees the need to involve Casey - who has been forced to retire in disgrace - in the search committee for a new principal. I also don't understand why the meeting about the search process is not taking place until next week. Everyone knew that Richards was a finalist for the Belmont job last Monday or Tuesday, and it had to be assumed he was the frontrunner. As much as I don't respect Richards and am not sorry to see him go, the fact that there is no principal at the high school is a crisis for the district, and I cannot understand why those in charge are taking so long to address this issue. There should be a search team and process to find a replacement in place already!

Tim, I *think* that Taymore is only referring to having met with Richards to discuss MHS the upcoming school year after she was officially hired. That probably doesn't change your point, but that's how I read it.

Also, a point of clarification: The search committee did not hire Taymore. The search committee's role was to identify five finalists who were forwarded to the School Committee, which makes the final decision on who to hire as superintendent. (This again doesn't quite speak to the point you're making, but I wanted to clarify.)

And while I understand the urgency here, we reported that Casey (and thus the Melrose Schools district) first learned about Richards finalist status on Monday morning, when he informed them. And, his hiring was announced today. So a week between learning that he might leave/four days learning that he is leaving, and starting the work on finding an interim replacement, as Taymore said in her statement, doesn't seem like so long a time. It is, of course, really bad timing, it being so late in the year, as opposed to the elementary principals' departure, for instance, which the district learned about in April.

Dan, I have two questions for you:
1. Has the mayor or his office issued any kind of statement about Richards' resignation? If not, don't you find that kind of strange?
2. Has Richards returned your call? Or has he issued any type of statement about his tenure in Melrose? I would be amazed if he does, but I think the fact that he chooses to ignore the people of Melrose at this time speaks volumes about him as a person.

Vacation or no vacation, the mayor should be out in front of this with some kind of statement, even if not issued in person. That's why he makes the big bucks. Don't hold your breath to hear from Richards. He should have issued a statement to the people of Melrose or the Melrose High School community immediately upon his resignation - it should have been posted on the school's website or on his silly twitter feed already. It has not been and it won't be. He just has no class, among his other failings.

Pretty lousy that Richards decided to leave after only a year and hasn't released any kind of statement to the community. Says a lot about character, I suppose.

My overall feeling for Melrose and it's future with education is this; We really need to get with the program and start paying our teachers and administrators competitively. This amount of turn-over is in direct response of how we treat them. We need to pay an equitable rate or we will never retain the type of talent we need in order to have a great educational system. The Mayor has suggested that there is no need to pay more since we receive so many applicants. I suggest that paying someone less, simply because there is a demand for employment, doesn't make it right and that attitude wont retain talent and can only harm our children's future.

Until we do that, we will be the school system where people go to get experience and move on or people stay because no one else will hire them. It looks bleak unless we step it up.

In a community where real estate still holds considerable value, we should be able to use some of that tax revenue and start paying like it's 2012. If you take a look at that graph (which is excellent) you can see a direct correlation between pay and quality of schools.

I believe that in order to pay our teachers more, without either drastically increasing class size or cutting other services, we would require an prop 2 1/2 override. I think the mayor thinks that is not politically possible and I tend to trust his political instincts. I'd be in favor of it, but it did not go well the last time we tried.

I believe removing the non-performing teachers is essential, and frankly, this will create a lot of job openings for better prepared teachers. We should synchronize the whole thing so that there is a synthesis in the weeding process. Paying a little more in property taxes could greatly benefit the future of our town.

I totally agree with Liz. The school system simply must improve, or the value of property in this town will not keep up with surrounding towns. Right now, we pay the teachers in bananas, so it's no surprise we get monkeys teaching our kids. We definitely need to get rid of the non-performing teachers and administrators, think about other items that could be cut from the budget, and increase the pay scale to be competitive with other towns.

I would argue that we can't afford NOT to raise taxes. The more we keep going down this road, the worse our schools will become. The worse our schools become, the more people move elsewhere. The more that people leave, the continued scaling down of schools, makes our town less and less desirable. The more undesirable we are, the bubble we've been living in of having our real estate holding it's value will burst.
When we treat our schools like they are worth nothing, we will get nothing in return. When we put little in we get little out. No one wants to raise their children in a suffering school system, so they will buy homes elsewhere, and take their wallets with them.

I too am troubled by the continuing turnover in our schools. My husband and I have no school age children and did not live in Melrose when raising our respective families. But the issue of school funding is an age -old conundrum. Those citizens without families tend to vote against school related issues which in my mind is a big mistake. We should all share equally in providing the best education possible for our young people as they are the ones who will care for us in our old age. Young people bear the burden of supporting the elderly via their taxes, social security payments, etc and the reverse should hold true as well. To vote down improvement for education is a most counter-productive fashion of existence and sends the wrong message to our youth.

Isn't our tax rate similar to Winchester, a town which has top notch public schools?

Thanks Liz. I knew the houses were more expensive, but I also know from friends that they don't have trash pick up and other amenities.

But we do pay for trash pickup in Melrose - it's 200 a year and it's included in your water bill. I'm not sure what other amenities Winchester has over Melrose?